Zij, usually
connected with Persian zU "threads in the loom" > "lines in
tables" > "tables." Cf. C. A.
Nallino, op. cit., V,120. It may, however, be a distortion of
bizidhaj, the
Middle Persian title of the Anthology
of Vettius Valens. Intervocalic dh isknown
to change to y in Middle Persian (cf. W. Eilers, "Der Name des
persischen Neujahrsfestes," in
Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften and der Literatur,
Geistes- and Sozialwissen­schaftliche Masse, 1953, No. 2, p. 4), and bi-
may have been lost, in the course of
transmission, as preposition, as is known to happen.